Many's the tale that has been told about the legendary true story which I am now, among the pages of this book you hold in your hands, going to relate to you. Many's the yarn that has been spun both far and wide with versions as varied as their tellers. Aye, though many are the tides which have ebbed and flowed between the times of these wild, adventurous voyages and the present moment, I shall, with due propriety, lay the bare facts before you just as they actually occurred. In beginning my narrative, let me first make note of the importance of sketching a proper history of the players in our swashbuckling sea drama. For if I appear from time to time to steer off course, it is only for the necessary netting of the substantial profiles of those salty characters who bring our sea story to life. I am thankful to the reader for keeping me company. However shrouded in the mists of the Ages its origins may be, a good painting must always be brushed with a revealing background in order to fully portray it's significance in time and place. So have a sip of your herbal tea from the far flung Spice Islands of the Seven Seas and, without further ado, let us now begin. ~*

Chapter One ~*A Longing for the Sea ~*

In the Northwest region of the peninsula of Florida in an area sometimes referred to as the Panhandle, you will find the picturesque seaside town of Panama City. It is a scenic place of natural beauty populated with friendly folk who welcome all visitors as family. Stately, old, expansive Southern Plantation mansions greet you along palm and oak lined avenues. Widespread oaks of immense size and antiquity, their branches drooping nigh to earth and gently waving a courteous hello in the warm sea breeze. Leafy limp limbs adorned with silvery, curly strands of Spanish moss like Christmas trees decorated with tinsel or Southern Belles beckoning you with their lace handkerchiefs to stop in for a mint julep or a tall, cool glass of lemonade. Rows of green Azalea hedges bloom pink in the Spring and the soft blend of Gulf air with flower scent perfumes these charming byways with an intoxicating aroma that sooths away the ills of a weary traveler's soul. Gulls mewing and calling at the surf where the salty waves gently lap at white, sugar sands. Sand dollars and horseshoe crabs, rainbows and sunsets paint a pristine picture of nature at her finest in this lea of littoral delight. A sportfisherman's paradise some call it, for this entire coastal habitat is veined with bays, bayous, coves, inlets, creeks and branches of tiny, secluded watercourses. It is certainly a veritable nature lover's paradise. The brackish waters provide a diverse marine estuary which serves as a fundamental element in the food chain and thus, the ebb and flow of life. Aye, the great old mansions can be seen as you tour along lazy avenues like the one called Beach Drive which follows the genial, inviting coastline of Saint Andrew Bay. This is the modern day Panama City. However, during the time in which our story takes place, only one or two of those big, square, comfortable looking homes peered out over the Bay. You can spy the originals even today, for though they have been refurbished and maintained through succeeding generations, these archaic estates do show clues to their rustic old age. Panama City wasn't much more than a quaint country community sprouting on a sparkling shore during the era of our nautical chronicle. A few homesteaders working government land grants. Just to the East of this nostalgic maritime settlement, the land is densely wooded with long leaf pines on high sandy bluffs dropping off into twisted thickets of low growing branches and thorny vines in the mucky swamp bottoms and cypress heads. Within these marshy backwaters creep every buzzing, crawling, biting vermin to ever plague mortals on earth. Tarantula~like, gargantuan spiders with florescent yellow fur covering their long, searching legs spin cast~net sized webs which, when viewed in profile, glow with the same eerie bright yellow color. Venomous moccasins prowl the decomposing organic ground, silently slithering among fermenting brown twigs and leaves which are endlessly drifting out of the tight canopy downward to the uneven surface of the wetland floor. These thick, chunky serpents with their short, blunt tails are perfectly camouflaged to lie unseen among the rotting foliage. Only when spooked do they draw the eye of any intrepid explorer. Intrepid, indeed, is our explorer for naught but insatiable curiosity or the lust for buried treasure could force a person to hazard into this otherwise unseen otherworldly realm of shadow, dampness and danger. The water moccasins alone are enough to steer most folks clear of places like Sea~Hag Bog. Silent and invisible such creatures are until, when nearly stepped on, these slithery denizens of the morass and quagmire quickly dart for the water's edge, disappearing without a sound into the murky pools and winding sloughs to again disguise themselves among the same twigs and leaves which also litter the muddy channels. The pungent marsh odor bubbles up, fumigating the branch and bramble atmosphere with byproduct gases of twig, leaf and other recyclables which lie water~logged, slowly decaying neath the surface of the deceptive tributaries which guard and hide the secret of their depths under a shimmering and cloudy veil of swirling sediment. The eye of our adventurer follows the hypnotic sway of a winding wig of Spanish moss down from the sagging limb of a water~oak, opening lids wide as it comes to rest upon a fat, heavy, fallen cypress tree. An old, gray, algae covered log large enough to carve into a dugout canoe. Wait a minute. Logs don't have eyes !! That's no log !! It's an Alligator !! Back up slowly now. One step at the time. Don't take your eyes off of the hideous thing. Can it sense fear ?? Aye, the swamps and backwaters of the Florida Panhandle are numerously inhabited by these leather~skinned leviathans. Dinosaurs with giant, tooth filled jaws which can bite a boat in half !! The Intracoastal Waterway cuts right through the bowels of this inhospitable region and in a certain spot along the Intracoastal Canal, close to the mouth of Wetappo Creek and about a mile Southeast of Ringjaw Camp within sight of Lookout Point, there's a treacherous bend known as Devil's Elbow. It is here that a remarkable fortune in Spanish Gold Bullion lies hidden, buried in a secret location by a Confederate Pirate, or Privateer as he preferred to be called, during the waning days of the Civil War. Hubert Scribbner by name, but everyone called him Scribb for short. He was short, too. Measuring in at only 5 feet 5 and a half inches, there were many womenfolk who were taller than he. Before the War broke out, Scribb worked for a cattle rancher named Courtney at the meager pay~rate of only a dollar a day and his lunch. It is recorded in some histories that Courtney Point on Saint Andrew Bay, which can be spotted on various nautical charts of the area, is named in honor of Ranch Boss Courtney. Back in those days, Panhandle cattle ranchers were called Florida Crackers on account of the bullwhips they cracked in herding their beef cattle from pasture to pasture among the pines and palmettos. When fattened, oft as many as ten thousand head, the cattle were then cracked on off to the regional livestock market at the Port of Apalachicola, mostly to show to foreign buyers and fetch top dollar. Scribb used to hear talk amongst the Florida Cattle Ranchers of how the Sloops, Brigs and Cutters which sailed up the Gulf Coast from Cuba bringing purchasing agents to the auctions were laden with Spanish Gold. Heavy bars of shiny gold; ingots of convenient size and shape, each one a Pirate's bounty. Enough to establish a man in respectable society for life. Nearly 100 percent pure and neatly stacked in iron clad wooden chests which had shapely, curved lids, likewise, of such heavy weight themselves that one must be careful with one's fingers when raising or lowering the massive chest lids. Oh, how Scribb's heart used to lurch in his chest every time he saw those fancy dressed Cuban purchasing agents in their silk shirts, suede boots and broad brimmed Cavalier hats trimmed with fluffy ostrich plumes !! He entertained many's the fantasy about what he would do if he could but lay his hands on just one of those Spanish Gold Bullion Bars !! No more saddle sores for him. He didn't mind so much being called a Cracker, after all it was a worthy title for a young man. It brought with it a certain air of command and respect, but he didn't like the back breaking labor of wrangling a living out of punchin' cows in the heat and humidity of the Florida Gulf Coast. He had always dreamed of a life at sea. He fantasized and waxed romantic about the adventures of sea voyages to far off exotic places like the Mediterranean, India and the islands of the South Pacific. Scribb was generally not very well liked as it was considered by all who knew anything of him that he had a persecution complex due to his lack of manly height and this, it was rumored, accounted for his defensive personality and quickness of temper. Scribb's tawny, scraggly hair flipped and flopped over his piercing green eyes. Being constantly at rigorous manual labor, Scribb maintained a trim, fit figure. In fact, he was rather robust and stalwart; solid as a bulkhead. His round, cropped head and his sun weathered face swept from side to side in perpetual glances in all directions as if he morbidly feared a sneak attack upon his person from any direction at any moment. His North European blood could not be concealed in his brawny veins, for he had the carriage and dress of a scrying Dutchman. Scribb gripped grog in watering holes up and down the coast but he never got tanked in taverns lest he bear the brunt of some rowdy reveler's joke. Scribb paid attention to all the idle gab and burly talk, keenly on his awares for any information which might be useful to him in his nefarious plots and plans to escape the clutches of poverty and hard work. It was, in fact, these very routine rural ramblings which made him hate being tied to the land day and night. He was determined to wrench himself free from his monotonous existence as a cattle hand and find his away aboard an outbound ship to make real his heart's desire of life on the Briny. Scribb had a profound longing for the sea. He desperately yearned for the exciting discovery and riches which he just knew awaited him among the uncharted waters of the high seas. He didn't want to be a land~lubber for the rest of his life and he had a chip on his shoulder about it which was the real reason Scribb didn't much associate himself with others. Being land~lubbin' scallywags themselves meant that they were beneath him in breed and character and therefore not worthy of his daring comradery. "I can navigate the Gulf of Mexico!" Scribb would say to himself of an evening.

And so it was that, in the summer of the memorable year 1867 from the back of his bay steed as he cracked the lumbering, browsing Herefords on to the next green pasture, Scribb peered out across the wide vista of Saint Andrew Bay at the old, abandoned Beacon Beach Lighthouse. The old lighthouse stood atop a massive sand dune on what is now Shell Island. During Scribb's era Shell Island wasn't an island at all, but a spur of the mainland. This slim strip of sand, sea~oats and scrub thickets of various indigenous species narrowed into a point at the Gulf's edge where a natural harbor entrance gave access to the Bay. The constantly shifting sandbar shoals made it shallow and dangerous for large vessels to navigate and hence its name, Shipwreck Narrows. It is still there today. With the construction of a jetty~lined deep water passage into the Bay some small distance to the west, this strip of white, sandy beach became cut off from the mainland thus forming an island which was, during the middle part of the 20th century, named Shell Island. The East Pass at Land's End, as the locals now call it, is seldom used by any but the smallest vessels. Shipwreck Narrows was then, as it is now, treacherous sailing and has claimed its toll of seaman and sea going craft alike. To the eastward of Shipwreck Narrows lie the brackish, sun drenched marshes of Crooked Island Sound. In Scribb's day, the old Beacon Beach Lighthouse perched atop its massive sand dune sat proudly overlooking the emerald green, sapphire blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It was accessed by a wagon trail which circumnavigated the Bay. Widow's Walk wagon trail, as it was then known, was dotted with little wooden bridges over the numerous creeks, bogs and tiny branches of bayous which crossed its path. Sturdy little hand crafted wooden crossings, any one of which provided a haven and source of inspiration for the poet, the painter and the storyteller alike. No one knew exactly how long the old Beacon Beach Lighthouse had shone its beam of light far out on to the Gulf guiding many a wayward seafarer to the safety of Saint Andrew Bay. All anyone knew for sure is that it was constructed by Spanish Colonists sometime during the late 18th century at the behest of their Spanish Ministry. The Spaniards used Haitian slaves as labor. At night these Caribbean slaves would light bonfires using driftwood. One account of this Creole activity is found in a letter from a missionary named Turnbull to the governor general of Pensacola dated 27 May 1789. Turnbull relates that the Spaniards watched from the safety of their Galleons at night as the slaves danced around huge fires to their native drum beats, much excited, running in and out of the Gulf surf, chanting incantations and performing mysterious ceremonies and rituals. This letter, combined with other sources, gave the old lighthouse a reputation for being haunted by exotic spirits as there can be little doubt that the strange rites performed by the slaves were of the religious practice known today as Voodoo and Santeria. Aye, the old Beacon Beach Lighthouse was reputed to be haunted and in time, as was prophesied by many who gossiped and rumored about the old lighthouse, this haunting manifested itself in grotesque and very real form. During the first years of the 1800's, two brothers named Malachiah and Jebediah Yorkson, Quakers from Salem, Massachusetts, came to operate and maintain the lighthouse for the Saint Andrew Bay settlement which immediately preceded the founding of Panama City. As the disquieting old legend recounts, a mighty and frightful hurricane, which had moved from the Caribbean into the Gulf late in the August of 1807, began to approach the northwest Florida Gulf Coast. The first signs appeared when the blue sky of the waning summer gained an unidentifiable and uncertain cast. High, streaked, elongated clouds with a clear metallic sheen began to assume the counter~clockwise motion familiar to hurricanes even when they are still some far distance out in the Gulf. By the second day, there were few, if any, places above head where even the smallest patch of opaque, milky sky could be seen. The scene above the lighthouse grew more ominous as morning passed into evening. Gigantic, dark storm clouds swollen with tropical rains hanging heavy in their low sagging bellies spiraled in faster~moving, tightening squall bands just over the top of the old lighthouse. Winds increased beyond gale force by nightfall and the swells following the rising storm surge were breaking with ever greater destructive power closer and closer to the high sand~dune which, along with a limestone foundation, formed the base of the old lighthouse. The two brothers had been warned by their fellow Bay villagers to abandon the old lighthouse for higher ground further inland, but being stubborn as the proverbial mule, they ignored the warnings of those more experienced with the Gulf weather and stayed with the old lighthouse. The brothers lived there. All they had in the world was in that old lighthouse. It was the only home and property which either of them had ever known outside of the orphanage in which they were raised. Sentimentally attached they were to the old lighthouse in spite of its reputation for being haunted by Voodoo spirits, but as the lightening ripped open the angry dome of dark clouds pressing down on their heads with the weight and full fury of the hurricane while thunder boomed in their very ears like the cannons of war, one can well imagine that the brothers were regretting their brash decision. By this late hour, it was too late to run. The storm surge, made higher still by the ill timed arrival of high tide, had completely surrounded the base of the lighthouse with crashing waves and fierce, swirling undertow. Death surrounded Malachiah and Jebediah on all sides, this it is well understood by all. No one, however, could have predicted the tragic, gruesome outcome resulting from this midnight, maritime storm of storms. For when this devastating Gulf cyclone made landfall on Saint Andrew Bay, its wrath, and perhaps the Voodoo which possessed the lighthouse with its taboo omen, set in motion a horrific chain of events which in all probability shall never be known to anyone save Malachiah and Jebediah Yorkson. By the next day, the tremendous tempest had rapidly moved inland several miles to the northeast, but the wretched sky still lay upon the Bay like a dark foreboding lid of oppression and the gale force winds were still tearing in off the Gulf with enough strength to knock a man down. It could be seen though, that amazingly enough, the old lighthouse was still there! It required another whole day and night for the winds to still and the sky to clear enough for anyone to safely traipse through the scattered seaweed, palm fronds, barrel staves, dead fish and other pulverized debris out to the old lighthouse to find out if Malachiah and Jebediah had survived the violent storm. A small company of male inhabitants from the all but totally leveled Saint Andrew Bay settlement approached the old lighthouse. On their way out, the rescuers couldn't help but notice a swirling funnel~shaped battery of gulls circling above the old Beacon Beach Lighthouse. As they made their way closer, they spotted vultures, turkey buzzards, a sure sign of death, morbidly hunched atop the old lighthouse. Crows, too, flapped and shuffled for position in the immediate vicinity. The entrance door was on the Gulf side and it wasn't until they reached this far side of the old lighthouse that they discovered the cause of the mass gathering of scavenger fowl. Nothing in their simple fishing farming lives could have prepared this humble little group of kind coastal folk for the macabre scene which met their unbelieving eyes. Seldom is such horror reflected upon the human countenance as was borne by the faces of each and every member of this small reconnaissance party on this day. The hurricane had left in its aftermath a most loathsome and ghastly sight. There, dangling in the sea~breeze, hanging high from the wrought iron banister of the old Beacon Beach Lighthouse, was the rigid lifeless body of Jebediah Yorkson. Tight around his abnormally elongated neck was jerked a hangman's noose of frayed hemp rope. Teddy Womack, the youngest of the search group, immediately fell into a convulsion of profuse vomiting and most of the others began to gag as if Teddy had set in motion a chain reaction of vile, putrid, involuntary bodily response. Everyone was speechless in the presence of this freakish death. Not a single word was said. There was no way that Jebediah could have been identified had he not been known as wearing the same red long~sleeve shirt all the time, for his face was bloated, distorted, discolored; his eyes both swollen shut. His hands too, protruding from his shirt cuffs, were swelled and of a most repulsive dark, bluish gray shade. The old lighthouse, though still standing, had sunk a foot or more into its foundation shifting so that it now leaned out toward the Gulf at such an angle as to cause one to wonder that it still balanced upright. It seemed to groan and grunt under its own weight promulgating the fear of it toppling over with convincing vehemence amid the perception of all. Wallace Grimsby, the self appointed leader of the troop, stepped up to the door with his eyes glancing up and down the tower ready to jump sidewise out of harm's way if it suddenly began to collapse. The macabre scene inside the old lighthouse which met his eyes as he shoved open the twisted, jammed door was as revolting and unspeakable as the repugnant spectacle outside. At the base of the stair~well with the blackened wooden steps spiraling above it was a small round table fashioned of local long leaf pine. Rough hewn and primitive in appearance, it served as both reading and dining table for the brothers. An oil lamp lay overturned in a puddle of foamy sea~water on the floor beside the simple table. Sprawled across the top of the table itself lay the ungainly corpse of Jebediah's brother Malachiah. His head was horribly injured. Chunks of skull, scalp and what appeared to be dried blood and brains were spattered upon the wall opposite the right side of his body. He was lying face down on the table as if he had been sitting for supper and simply dropped his upper body forward. His left hand lay flat open on the far side of the table from his face and loosely propped in his right was a flintlock English dueling pistol. Seeing Malachiah laying there devoid of life, all Wallace Grimsby could think about was the blue shirt which it was Malachiah's habit to wear and which he had on even in the stench of death. Without realizing what had come over him, Wallace entered unconsciously into a reverie about the strange custom the brother's had of Jebediah always in a red shirt and Malachiah always in a blue one. "Why had they done that?", he wondered. "What did it mean?" Just at that moment the old lighthouse let out a low, grinding sound, the vibration of which Wallace felt reverberating in his chest, and shifted further upon its base. Wallace snapped out of his trance, turned and ran from the threshold of the door while everyone else quickly took several steps back until they were well out of danger. Teddy managed on his hands and knees, still heaving bile from his intestines. Set rocking by the sudden movement of the tower, Jebediah's dead body swung round in wide circles and the foul odor of reeking, rotting flesh wafted over the group. That disgusting smell, the dreadful tragedy mixed with the heat, humidity and rancor of the silty surf caused by the upheaval of the rampaging hurricane was simply too much. The ragtag brigade just could not cope with it. Helping Teddy to his feet, they all walked off back to the rubble of their wrecked settlement. It was decided, sacrilegious as it seemed, that due to the instability of the old lighthouse the Yorkson brothers would be left where they were without attempting to retrieve them for proper burial. No sense losing other lives by trying for the interment of ones which were beyond saving.

~*~*~*~*~* Personal Log Entry ~*~*~*~*~*

Many of the noble citizens of our good settlement had their minds adversely affected to such a degree by the corpse of Jebediah Yorkson hanging and rotting in the sea~breeze at Beacon Beach Lighthouse that they were obliged to pull up stakes and relocate elsewhere. A good number of said being so malevolently sickened and disturbed that never again were they able to live upon any seacoast.Wallace J. GrimsbySaint Andrew Bay Township13 September 1807~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scribb didn't give a hoot about any odd history which the old lighthouse may have possessed. He didn't care if it was haunted or if a nightmarish, unspeakable atrocity had occurred there. He wasn't afraid of what may have happened in the past, his only concern was for the future. His future. Dark nights full of foul weather were the moments when Scribb felt most alive. He was energized by the mystery and the unknown passion of the elements. On a black and stormy night Scribb would make his way out to the old lighthouse by himself. No other could see what he could see, feel what he could feel nor fathom what he knew. In solitude he would push back the ramshackle door at the foot of the tilted old lighthouse and enter into its foreboding shadows. Flashes of lightening streaked through the musty gloom as he fumbled for the dark lantern which he kept hanging on a wooden peg just inside the door. Lighting the lantern and adjusting the shudder so that only a thin beam of whale oil light shown out in front of him, Scribb began his precarious ascent up the creaking wooden steps which wound around the inner wall in a clockwise fashion all the way to the top of the old lighthouse. As he climbed, he continuously darted cautious glances to his right as the safety railing had, over the aging years, fallen away in several places. The smell of heated metal joined with the stimulus of the stormy night to give him a sudden surge of excitement. The sea tempest howled away outside beating its way through the limestone walls of the old lighthouse with a muffled hum sounding like the wailing of a sick sea~calf. The pounding of the nearby surf rubbed tremors into the floor which resonated like a subterranean Voodoo drum in the hollow chamber of the old lighthouse. Adorned in a rain poncho, Scribb looked like a strange caricature of Jekyll & Hyde rising like a phantom from the old lighthouse floor. The hemp rope strung corpse of Jebediah had long since vanished from outside and though the collapsed remnants of the old pine table lay in a heap on the floor, where was Malachiah's skeleton? There should have been a pile of rags and bones lying there with the broken down table. They didn't just get up and walk away by themselves. Or did they? As he slowly crept up the aged staircase he watched as long shadows stretched out ahead of him in anthropomorphic shapes shifting and flickering with the dim lantern light. "No one else will come near this crone's lair!", Scribb whispered to himself. "They probably think I'm crazy. Simple minded landlubbers!" He was snorting and chuckling with sinister delight. He marveled at the red bricks which lined the inner walls of the old lighthouse. Scribb knew these had been added by the Yorkson brothers and he wondered if the ghosts of Malachiah and Jebediah were watching him. He listened for the echo of their unfortunate souls and tried to imagine how a stormy night like this would have been with seawater washing in around the foundation. A creaking riser suddenly snapped with a loud pop and gave way under his right foot. In the blink of an eye Scribb's leg had shot through the rotting step up to his knee. With his left hand he instinctively grasped for a place to hold on to, scraping his knuckles against the coarse red bricks. Letting out an angry curse, he paused momentarily reflecting on how close he had just come to his own death. A fall from this height would break his neck for certain. Groping in the dark to pull himself back into a standing position, Scribb noticed that the brothers hadn't finished laying the red bricks all the way to the top. An exposed layer of rough, lumpy, hardened mortar on the last bed joint about two thirds of the way up the inside of the leaning tower showed where their work had stopped. Scribb had turned his hand at masonry, too; didn't like it at all. A life at sea was the only life for him. Reaching the top, he completely closed the shudder of his dark lantern, which he had somehow managed to hold onto during his accident, and placed it on the deck of the lamp room beside the cracked, tarnished fresnel lens. Carelessly shoving open the jagged, broken glass door at the glorious crest of the old Beacon Beach Lighthouse, Scribb stepped out onto the balcony. The full rapture of the thrashing winds in the midnight gale leaped upon him causing his skin to instantly rumple into gooseflesh. His weight and the swirling squall seemed to make the old lighthouse tremble and he jerked on the handrail and threw his head back as if daring the antique edifice to crumble over and bury him under stone, brick and rubble, crushing the very life out of him the way he would squash a palmetto bug with his boot. The middle of the night, the bewitching hour had arrived and the tempestuous energy of the wide open surging Gulf was at its fullest. Scribb had a powerful longing for the sea, true enough. It was his fate to plunder the wealth of the Gulf. It was his destiny to sail away from the uneventful world of the landsman and seek his fortune among the waves. Shaking his fists wildly high above the earth in the salty air with his face spattered in rain and squinting his passion filled, zealous green eyes straight into the angry gale Scribb shouted at the pitch of his lungs, "I am Neptune! I am Poseidon! I am Davy Jones!" It was at that moment that Scribb felt something which made him instantly shut his hollering mouth and stand rigid as a plank tightly gripping the banister railing. Someone, or some thing, had laid a hand on his shoulder. The hand had a heavy, firm grip but felt brutally hard, thin and sharp with spikes for finger nails which mercilessly dug into Scribb's flesh even through his poncho, vest and shirt. Slowly and with fear striking lines of horror in all his features, Scribb turned to face his assailant. Upon turning his head full round, Scribb's heart fell in his chest and his eyes widened in genuine fear for his immortal soul as he beheld the ghastly sight behind him. Flash after flash of bright yellow lightening illuminated the frenzied night with a beastly glow and there, staring Scribb right in his face, was the evil, spectral skeleton of Jebediah Yorkson !! Behind Jebediah, his brother Malachiah. Their red and blue shirts showing pale, bony rib cages through torn tatters. Their bare teeth menacing Scribb in an maniacal grin.

Chapter Two:Scribb's friend Jake ~*

Aye, Scribb wasn't interested in mixing with the local lot. That being what it was, about the only friend Scribb ever had was fellow ranch~hand named Tobber. Tobber had, as only the boss and a few others were aware, been convicted a number of years previous at Fort Walton of armed robbery involving a local merchant and his stash of rare Colonial Manuscripts made up of ledgers from pre~Revolutionary War tea~import accounts. These antique instruments of commerce, bearing origins mostly of Boston, Salem and Nantucket Island, were said to be of high value to and much desired by certain museums in England and on the European Continent. In those days, the city of Fort Walton was known as Camp Walton and Camp Walton wasn't officially formed and named until the start of the Civil War in 1861, but we shall get to that. The reason ranch boss Courtney had hired Jake Tobber, for that was his name, after his release from penal servitude is because he(Courtney) knew Jake's Aunt Louise. Being good friends with Aunt Louise naturally meant that Courtney believed the story she told of her nephew's innocence. According to Aunt Louise, the wealthy merchant was in love with a certain local debutante, Maria by name, whose innocent beauty remained unrivaled throughout the entirety of the Gulf Coast. The wealthy merchant's then employee and store manager, Jake, was the only thing, or so the merchant felt, that stood in his way of winning the lovely debutante's hand in marriage, as Jake and this hometown beauty had entered into friendly acquaintance with one another. The merchant, being not only wealthy but one of the founding fathers of the town which grew up around Camp Walton, surely had the advantage of reputation, integrity and believability in his favor. Whereas, Jake himself was a young man of no capital means as well as a new comer to the area; a stranger from outside. Jake's mother had died during childbirth and his father, being a military man stationed out West where there were still sporadic outbreaks of Indian attacks, felt that it would be a safer, healthier environment for his son, with more opportunities for a peaceable life, if he went to live with his Aunt Louise on the balmy Gulf Coast of Florida.